WORLD TRAIN: MIDDLE
MD Shoatzycoatl
Acknowledgments
From the dinosaur kid in the first grade and the kid I pushed into a pine-tree while playing football to Kindergarten teachers, paper boy bosses, card game opponents, college roommates, army guys that put lemon juice up their noses, Japanese foreign exchange students, brothers, parents, day-dreamers, students, flower girls, bandanna-wearing treasure hunters, medievalists, teachers who passed me when I should have failed, mushroom plumbers, fairy godmothers, umpires, athletes, Sky-walkers, sky-talkers, relatives, neighbors, lunch ladies, lovers, and God. Thank you. This book would never have been written if it weren’t for all of you.
ZERO
My brother was finally dead – a small trail of smoke disappearing from the barrel of my pistol. The sound of the gunshot echoing over the clouds. Then…a moment of silence – a moment where stillness took Time captive – before:
“No!” Merth’s scream brought reality back. She rushed to my brother’s body. “Get up! You can’t die!”
The Gael soldier named Dejo raised his rifle and pointed it at me. “What have you done?” he yelled. “Answer me!”
“Is he really dead?” I asked.
“No…wake up!” Merth’s cries turned to sobs as she shook his body. “Wake up!”
“Pratt’s dead too…” Paul held the winged guide in his arms – despair spreading across his face.
“First you killed Master Bede, and now this?” Dejo seethed.
“I had no such hand in Bede’s undoing.” I explained. “Your Master wanted to die.”
“Lies!” Dejo looked at me through the sights of his rifle. “You spew poison!”
Purple plumes of smoke covered the distant sky. I rushed through the dry tangles of Branglewood – hollow sticks and dried out twigs snapping under the weight of my boots. Apparently, the traitorous Rikard and his men – the ‘Crossifiers’ – had decided to move earlier than anticipated.
The trees thinned and I broke my way through a patch of rotting bamboo shoots. Bede’s Academy grounds were set on fire, Rikard’s men running amuck with torches in hand and blades at the ready.
I lifted the wing from my back, drew my blade in one hand, and brandished one of my pistols in the other. Leaping into the air, I opened fire on one of the ‘Crossifiers’, spraying several bullets into his torso and cutting through his shoulder as I came back to the ground.
“Angel!” another ‘Crossifier’ yelled at my sight – I put a bullet through his neck before he could say anything else. Rikard’s men began to scatter with screams and shouts.
I rushed to Bede’s bunker house – the place where he trained his students before sending them off to one of the many Resistance Headquarters throughout the land. On my way, I dispatched another pair of foolish ‘Crossifiers’.
The bubble lanterns that Bede kept lit in the bunker house were knocked down and extinguished. Two more ‘Crossifiers’ were in the entranceway trying to escape – one of them carrying a bundle of the academy’s weapons, and the other looting a pile of thick texts from Bede’s library. They froze as they set eyes on me, and with one motion of my hand, they flew backward – one impaling himself on a discarded weapon, and the other losing his life as his skull crashed against a stone statue. Quickly, I moved to the broken body of Bede lying on the floor – he was still alive and looked at me gravely.
“Dac…” he muttered. “I was hoping to see you one last time…”
“The last we spoke, you told me I was to kill my brother.” I said. “Yet, when given the chance after the flood, you turned against me and forced me to flee…”
“The Time wasn’t right.” Bede replied. “You must Trust in the things that I’ve seen, my friend.”
“I’m tired of waiting…”
“Listen…” Bede coughed. “Your brother plays an important role in all of this. He will take you to Heaven – he will break the Lord’s seal which keeps the gates closed.”
“Then I can kill him?”
“Yes…but none of this matters if you don’t get my elixir back from Rikard’s men.”
“I know, I know…if I want the Lord’s power, I need to dump your silly potion into some pool.”
“Dac…” Bede showed his seriousness. “Whatever happens, the elixir must not fall into your brother’s hands.”
“Because he’ll come back and waste it on you?”
“No…much worse. One day you will know everything, and when you do, you’ll know that everything depends on this.”
“What do you know, old man?” I said as I shook his weakened body. “Tell me!”
“I…can’t tell you.”
“You’ll tell me, or you’ll die!” I took my pistol and put it to the old man’s forehead.
“I’ll die anyway, Dac.” Bede said with calm. “Now go find Rikard before he does something rash.”
“The potion grants everlasting life.” I said, dropping Bede’s body against the floor and standing over him. “I’ll keep it for myself…”
As I turned to walk away, Bede said his last words to me. “You may be shrouded in darkness, Dac. But one day, the fate of the Cosmos will be in your hands, and when it is, I pray you find whatever compassion is left in your soul.”
“None of that is true!” Dejo wanted to shoot me.
“All of it is true.” I said with finality. “The man you looked up to for so long – the man who trained you, the man who told you how to be righteous and pure and brave in the face of Beelzebub one day…that man was too much of a coward to do it himself.”
Dejo began firing his rifle, holding the trigger down and furiously spraying bullets at me. I wrapped my brother’s rotten wing in front of me, the soldier’s ammunition turning to puffs of dark dust as they failed to penetrate the feathers.
“Dejo stop!” Merth screamed. “Stop!”
Click. Click. Click. Click.
The rifle ran out of bullets. My blackened wing lowered and folded once again at my back.
“Let him go.” Tears streamed down Merth’s face. “Let him go his own way before we’re all dead…”
“He’s the enemy!” Dejo spit. “He’s the reason the Gael Plains are flooded, he’s the reason there’s death everywh-”
“Beelzebub is the enemy!” Paul scolded harshly. “Beelzebub is the reason that Heaven fell in the first place.”
“Maybe…” Dejo said with hatred as he took the bayonet from his rifle into hand. “But he spreads Beelzebub’s destruction and sadness everywhere he goes…”
“What good would it do to kill him?” Paul asked.
“One less demon in the world…” Dejo answered.
“Paul is right.” Merth reasoned. “We could risk our lives to fight him, but the truth is, Beelzebub won’t run out of demons to do his work, but the world will run out of people like us to fight Beelzebub.”
“Bede wanted to die.” I finally spoke. “He couldn’t handle the death that he continued to bring, so he wanted out. He wanted to pass the responsibility on to people like you and me and my worthless brother.”
“Don’t speak of Master Bede that way.” Dejo now began to cry.
“I knew Bede better than any of you.” I continued. “And I know he tried to fight Beelzebub the best way he could…by teaching – by training scores of mindless soldiers like yourself and the rest of The Resistance to do what? Die?” Merth, Paul, Dejo, and Zapa remained silent while stillness once again made Time it’s captive. “I told you the truth, and honestly, I don’t know what to believe of what Bede said or the so-called visions that he had. He was a manipulator…that’s what I believe. But when he laid dying – when he told me that I could have the Lord’s power if I came to Heaven, he spoke the truth. And that’s what I’m here to get. I’m here to get the Lord’s power so I can destroy Beelzebub myself and be the new ruler of this messed up world…”
ONE
“Why is there darkness in the world?” my brother had once asked our teacher when we were just toddlers in Heaven.
“The Cosmos keeps everything balanced.” Our instructor said. “For every bit of Life the Cosmos gives, it must also take it away one day.”
“But why? Why don’t we just get rid of all the darkness so nobody has to die?”
“You can’t vanquish all of the darkness, child.”
“I will!” My brother blurted out. “Someday I’ll take all of the darkness out of the world and everyone will be happy.”
“But we don’t control the darkness,” our teacher explained, “even if you were to get rid of every little bit of darkness to be found, it will creep back again, in the smallest, least expected ways…”
Kirin’s body writhed as she made a small sound of anguish – as if something unpleasant had just happened to her during her dreams.
“I don’t care if you want to follow me or not.” I told my brother’s troupe of soldiers. “But if you do, we leave the demon behind.”
“She’s no demon.” Merth knew I spoke of Kirin. “Surely the Lord put her in our path to help.”
“Beelzebub placed this…thing in our way because he wants access to Heaven and he knew my brother would be stupid enough to care for it.”
“How can you be sure?” Paul asked.
“Look at her wrists, the pentagrams – the mark of the Dark Prince himself. Do you not know how this works?” I asked – nobody said anything. “There’s a portal in the Great Mage Luc’s tower. It’s in the cellar laboratory under a wooden table which used to hold the wizard’s herb garden. I know because I’m the one who activated it so long ago…I’m the one who let Heaven fall.”
I sat on my knees in front of the gate to Heaven, my arms outstretched and my head lowered. This was the beginning – the beginning of the end.
The gates opened and Raziel appeared. “Dac, fallen Lord to House of Alkaev. They have disowned you for your betrayal and embracing of the dark arts. You have no business here, go back to your throng of devil worshipers.”
“Raziel – wise angel and keeper of truths! Please hear me!” I spoke – Raziel stopped for a moment and looked down on me like a parasite. “I come to confess – to be forgiven! Help me rid the darkness from my soul – let me work to rehabilitate myself and serve the Lord for goodness!”
“It wasn’t easy…” I told my brother’s followers. “But I convinced the high angels of Heaven – I convinced my despicable brother to take me back.” I shook my head, looking to the partially open gates of Heaven. “They locked me away – how…saintly of them. Father sending my brother to talk with me on a regular basis, the Great Mage Vice visiting to treat me as his test subject – his experiment to grapple with the dark ways weaved into my soul…”
“Aaaahhhg! Stop!” I screamed, the contents of Vice’s most recent concoction burning their way down my throat like a vial of hot lava.
“You did this to yourself.” My brother stood by, my body lying on a stone slab, my arms and legs bolted down by cuffs of steel. “Someday, you’ll thank me for this.”
“You don’t understand…” I wheezed. “Once you give your soul to the Prince, forever more will you be his subject.”
“Perhaps another dose…” My brother told Vice.
“No! Stop…I can only give you my word!” the burning pain in my stomach and chest was almost unbearable.
“Unfortunately, your word has no value.”
“I can tell you what the Prince did to me – how he uses me. Brother, please! I came back to oppose the darkness – I came back to help all of you!”
My brother stood still for a time, pondering my words. “Go on.” He said.
“First, my wrists…” I breathed a sigh of relief. “When I swore my allegiance to Refi, he sliced them open, grasped them, and made me repeat his words.”
“Of what importance is this?”
“After repeating his words, my wrists were sealed with a pentagram.” I continued. “They serve as eyes – he sees everything they do.”
My brother stepped closer, looking at the purple scars on my wrists. “Vice,” he said, “try your potion on his wrists.”
“No…no!” I panicked as the Lord’s Great Mage nodded and took a container of the liquid to hand. “It cannot be undone! You must trust me!”
“If it cannot be undone, then we can’t have you in Heaven.” My brother gave the go-ahead. Vice poured the mixture onto my left wrist, plumes of black smoke bellowing into the air accompanied by sharp hissing noises. My loudest screams could not drown out the pain…
“And I meant it…” I said, looking away from Heaven’s gates and back to my brother’s followers. “Genuinely, I wanted redemption. I wanted to help the Lord, my brother, and their court of angels. I wanted to find peace and I wanted the darkness to go away…”
“Did it work?” Merth asked. “Vice’s potion…did it do anything to help you?”
“No…” I said, unwrapping the tight bands and loose clothing over one of my wrists, revealing a purple pentagram. “Which is why I keep them covered at all times – I must keep Beelzebub blind to my whereabouts. But it matters not while she is with us.” I spoke of the one they believed to be Kirin. “Whatever demon hides in that shell, I guarantee it’s not sleeping nor is it unconscious. It serves Beelzebub, and he can see and hear everything we are doing as long as we harbor it.”
“If you really meant it – if you really went back to Heaven to be good, then what happened? Why did you still turn out to be a monster?” Paul asked, his hand still cautiously on his weapon.
“A monster, huh?” I chuckled. “Once you let the darkness in, it’s something you will battle forever more. And my Father, my brother, all of the angels that used to be here in Heaven…they were no better than Beelzebub and his legion of followers…just different.”
“What do you mean?” Paul probed.
“My brother tortured me, my Father and his righteous angels labeled me and treated me as an outcast. I wasn’t allowed in the Lord’s court, nor on His hallowed grounds. Even the common folk of Heaven spit on me and made me sleep in the streets. Ironic that trust and forgiveness were such small commodities in Heaven during those days…” I explained. “I just wanted to be accepted and appreciated…valued and loved. But when I realized the Lord and His angels were no better than Refi Tulcifer and his creation of demons, I took matters into my own hands, and I fell back on what I knew – I fell back on the darkness flowing through my veins.”
“Like I said, your words are poison!” Dejo was still upset. “I don’t believe a word you say…”
“Then you would be no different from those in Heaven so long ago.” I replied. “I’ve waited a long time for this day, and quite frankly, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I’ve taken things upon myself to make this world right, and I must go on. If you choose to follow me, do not bring the demon with…if you do, I will kill her.”
TWO
Merth, Paul, and Dejo decided to wait outside of Heaven’s gate with the corpses of their friends; Pratt, my brother, and the demonic body of Kirin. Zapa, however, trailed several yards behind me at all times.
Without moving the heavy gate much, I slipped back into the world I was once accustom to. While I remembered where to go and how to navigate the streets of Heaven, I could hardly recognize the landscape before me. The once smooth and flawless cobblestone path I stood on was now broken, the stones crumbled and jagged with weeds – some dead, others alive – growing between them.
While Heaven’s citizens were free to travel anywhere in the Kingdom they pleased, the actual populace was separated into Heaven Major and Heaven Minor. Of course, Father and His court of angels and mages were housed in Major. Other attractions such as museums, courts, temples, and libraries made up the rest of Heaven Major. The remaining population of Heaven were housed in Minor. There were also marketplaces, vineyards, shops, churches, and theaters in Heaven Minor.
The cloudy surface now changed to solid ground, although a charming white layer of mist floated in mysterious ways over the floor of Heaven. The once bustling and dynamic streets of Heaven Minor were now deserted. The buildings were but a cracked and mostly crumbled shell of what they once were. Vines and ivy invaded every structure with wild vegetation sprouting from the soil of Heaven. Metals in the form of pots, pans, pieces of armor, weapons, poles, frames, utensils, and shelves deteriorated very little aside from a smattering of rust. There were also the bones of those who were brutally murdered because of my actions scattered about – very little clothing, if any, covered their remains.
“There’s great sadness in this place…” Zapa’s voice drew my gaze. She knelt in the mist, her small palm on the forehead of a skull.
“These people deserved what they got.” I said. “It wasn’t always this way, but Heaven became a place held above the earth and those who struggled below. Father and His angels became oligarchs under the guise of fighting the darkness…”
“Her name was Bethany.” Zapa ran her finger over the cheekbones of the corpse’s skull, down her neck vertebrae, along her collarbone, down her arm, and eventually coming to hold her brittle hand. “She washed the academy boys’ uniforms…”
“Nobody cares who she was.” I snapped at the child. “Least of all the Lord whose arrogance cost Him His Kingdom. She died believing the Lord would protect her and save her, but she was wrong.”
“Dear Father,” Zapa now closed her eyes – she still held the skeleton’s hand. “If you will not hear your people directly-”
“What is this bilge?” I spat.
“-then please heed my prayer…you’ve cut off the world and now hatred spreads. Gaius sends me word to leave so as I am left out of the way of The Sickness.”
“The Sickness…” my annoyance fleeted.
“Gaius was her son.” Zapa opened her eyes and let the skeleton’s hand drop. “That was her last prayer, I guess. I mean, before you came and all.”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s what her spirit said.” The girl jumped to her feet. “Come on…maybe we’ll find a dead angel!”
The girl skipped ahead in the ruins of Heaven. ‘The Sickness’ – as it was called before Heaven fell – was an affliction that those of the world below would “catch”. Truth is, it wasn’t a virus or disease or sickness at all. It was an excuse for one to use when they lost their faith in the Lord above. You see, after the Prince left Heaven, he realized his connection to the Abyss and became a great manipulator of the dark cosmos, eventually coming to terrorize the world and its subjects with actual plague, death, and fear. When the people turned to my Father, He shut them out – He ignored their pleas and looked to protect his own world. Many were confused as the Lord’s messengers – his angels – no longer visited them with assurances that their prayers were being heard. With plague and suffering spreading across the land, the people wondered what they had done to anger the Lord into giving them punishment. Some tried to repent and kept their faith, while others contracted ‘The Sickness’ – a loss of faith in greater powers. There was a movement – as I recall – of those infected with ‘The Sickness’. They called themselves “Scythe Walkers” – a group of maniacal people devoted to slaughtering anyone who practiced prayer or devotion to the Lord above. This wasn’t part of the Prince’s plan, but he relished in the Scythe Walkers’ actions and laughed at the group’s false sense of control in which they created through their murderous actions.
We now turned down a pathway which once gave home to my favorite marketplace. As children, my brother and I would go to one stand in particular which sold many of the fruits from the world below. You see, Heaven was good for growing peaches, but not much of anything else, and Lawrence – the jolly fellow who ran this stand – would always offer us a piece of fruit…of our choosing, of course… if we could solve one of his riddles. And no matter how many times we went to Lawrence, he never ran out of riddles or repeated them once.
I now stood where his stand used to be, the awning torn and wavering from one of the sides that held it. The cinder blocks he used to display his goods were knocked over and broken into pieces. I was glad Lawrence made it out before The Fall. He might have been a patron to Heaven, but he was true to the lands below. When Father issued the decree to have Heaven’s gates closed, He gave the people one measly day to leave if they wished, and Lawrence was one of them. The last I heard of the old fruit stand merchant, he had settled somewhere on the Western Slope and took up farming and providing for those who suffered from the Prince’s many plagues.
One of Lawrence’s riddles that I forged to memory went something like this: I’d neither a guest nor a trespasser be; in this place I belong, that belongs also to me. Of what do I speak of? Of course, as children, I remember my idiotic brother answering with haste. He blurted out: “That’s easy. It’s Heaven.”
“No, no, my child.” Lawrence laughed. “It’s not an actual place, it’s a concept. I’ll give you another hint. It destroys what all men strive to have. Now think on it and come back tomorrow.”
“Are you just gonna stand there and stare at an old broken wall all day?” Zapa snapped me away from my memories, tugging on my sleeve.
“Get your dirty little hands off me!” I jerked my arm away from her and leaned away in disgust.
“So jumpy…geez.” Zapa rolled her eyes and turned away.
“No spirit tricks on me…” I mumbled under my breath.
We continued up the pathway and left the ruins of the marketplace behind. Before long, we made our way past the Vermilion Library – or at least what was left of the Vermilion Library. Its walls were now mostly toppled, but the scarlet stone stood out distinctly amongst the rest of the rubble. There weren’t many books left as most of them were victims of raging flame. I did, however, stop to pick up the charred remains of an ancient text. What I could make out from its title read: L-z—us; Abys—l Ene-g-es.
Looking up, the Vermilion Library used to be three stories tall, but now barely reached one story in places. During my time at the academy, our Jesuit professors would bring us to this place at least once a week for reading. I remembered the rumors my classmates would spread about a fabled fourth floor reserved for those identified as Major candidates – those whom the Jesuit elite recognized to have greater potential…greater opportunity to join the Lord’s prestigious court.
I never figured out if the fourth floor existed or not, but everybody in the academy teased me when my brother was taken away by the Jesuit elite and I was left behind.
“Guess you got all the stupid genes!” They would tease, and because I never liked talking much, they would follow it with: “He’s so dumb, he doesn’t even know what to say!” I could swear I heard their distant laughs and taunts as I stood before the destroyed library.
“It’s okay…” Zapa stood right next to me. “Their laughs aren’t real anymore.” I looked at the strange little girl for a moment. She picked up a stone and chucked it into the rubble. “Ha ha ha ha ha…” she mocked, “Father gave you life!” She screamed into the destruction. “Stupid idiots…”
I tossed the charred book back in the ruins and turned away from the Vermilion Library, making my way further towards Heaven Major and the Lord’s high court. We passed more crumbled buildings, Zapa stopping periodically when there was a corpse to investigate.
“Nope, not an angel…” she would say and continue on.
And then we came to an all too familiar intersection: Fountainhead and Wellspring. Zapa and I had been walking down Fountainhead – it was named this because it was the main avenue that led to Heaven Major and there were grand fountains at the end of it, signaling that you had made it out of Heaven Minor. But I paused as I stood at the cross-section of Wellspring, staring down its now ethereal and abandoned boulevard – the mist whispered incoherently, memories and pain beckoning.
“What is it?” Zapa stared into the mist with me.
“Nothing…” I felt anger swelling inside me. “There’s nothing down there for me. Let’s go.” I turned away from Wellspring and made my way up Fountainhead towards Heaven Major.
“You grew up down there.” Zapa said – I froze. “That’s where you were born, isn’t it?”
“I said let’s go.” Was all that I could respond with and my feet carried me away from the intersection.
“Wait!” Zapa chased after me. “Why don’t you wa-”
“No more!” I whirled around to face the girl, one of my hands twitching on the handgrip of my pistol. Just then, déjà vu struck me…
I stood next to my brother. He was asking one of the street folk – Henrietta was her name…I think – about if she’d seen Semreh or not in the last few minutes. All of that wasn’t important.
My brother was slightly older than me, and I wasn’t much more than ten years old. I stopped listening to my brother’s conversation and looked at the intersection up at Fountainhead.
There was a man in rags – really filthy rags not normally seen in Heaven. He had a metallic arm and something black bunched up on his back.
“No more!” he shouted at a little girl who looked to be my age, anger in his voice and murder in his eyes. A moment later, he looked from the girl and directly at me. I quickly hid behind my brother and Henrietta…
I looked up from Zapa and into the mist down Wellspring. For a split-second, the boy ghost from my past was there. He quickly dissipated into the mist.
“I’m sorry…” Zapa said – she meant it, and she hugged my side and arm. That was the first time someone hugged me since…
“No more…” I whispered and reciprocated Zapa’s hug by patting her on top of the head – her hair was soft and innocent. We shared the moment, but I really didn’t want to have any more experiences with the specters of my past. “Let’s go…”
As we continued towards Heaven Major, I tried to forget the memories of my past and the jeers of the other kids in the academy. But it was difficult. Why did my brother get chosen? Why – why did he get to be an angel and not me?
“You once gave me a riddle.” I thought back to a conversation I had with Lawrence the fruit stand merchant when I was an adolescent. “I’d neither a guest nor a trespasser be; in this place I belong, that belongs also to me.” I recited. “You said it destroyed what all men strived to have.”
“Ah! Yes…you and your brother never figured that one out.”
“Greed…it’s greed, isn’t it?”
“No…” Lawrence smiled. “Of all the puzzles I gave you, why does this one stick with you, young Dac?”
“It speaks to me – it haunts me.” I tried to explain. “I feel like it defines me, and I hate it. I really thought it was greed because I want to be taken to Major like my brother…I want to be in the Lord’s court too!”
“Hmmmm…” I remember Lawrence rubbing his balding head – searching for words in that moment. “If someone sits in your chair or whistles your song to the world’s satisfaction, I may be there. If someone writes with your pen or dances in your shoes to love’s satisfaction, I may be there. If someone lives in your thoughts and tortures you so, I may also be there. Of whom do I speak?”
“It’s not really a person though…it’s a concept, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Is it anger then?” I asked.
“It makes you blind, Dac. It’s not greed and it’s not anger…”
“I can’t think of anything besides fury or rage.”
“It’s jealousy, young child.” Lawrence finally gave me the answer. “You may identify with it because it’s digging at your insides. Like a worm tunneling its way to an apple’s core, if you don’t stop it in Time, the apple will go rotten…” I could still picture him tossing me a perfectly good, ruby red apple. “Now run along, Dac. And watch out for worms!”
Zapa and I came to the end of Fountainhead. We stood under what used to be a full archway, welcoming citizens to Heaven Major. There was a grand courtyard – the floor built with once polished and now fractured marble. There were disintegrated pillars and decadent, yet pillaged buildings of marvelous architecture now overrun with vines and battle scars all around us. In the center of the courtyard, there was a drained fountain of grand proportions now giving home to clumps of dead leaves and tangled weeds.
This was it. Straight ahead was Father’s grand hall, His temple, the ballroom, and finally, the high court where He and His angels so often convened to decide the fate of the world below. Straight ahead was where I murdered the Lord – our all-powerful Father and dictator of Heaven. Straight ahead was immortality.
After decades of struggle, pain, suffering, faith, and jealousy, my journey brought me here. I finally stepped foot back in the Lord’s most holy halls…
THREE
The city of Suez seemed deserted despite the traces of life I felt all around. The people were hiding in their vine-covered, rusted buildings, their wind chimes creating furious and chaotic tunes in the breeze. Beneath the chalky layer of white mist over the clouds, I could feel snakes slithering about.
Merth fell into one of the terraces outside a residence and subsequently screamed when Paul warned her of the reptiles crawling over her shoulder.
“Be – quiet.” Pratt scolded Merth and Paul.
“The streets are empty.” I said as I made my way out of the alleyway they were all huddled in and into the middle of an open traffic-way. “There’s not a soul who can hear us.”
“Fool.” Pratt thought I couldn’t hear him. “It’s not a ghost town…”
“Come out and greet us!” I shouted, running my hand over a row of wind chimes. “We are your guests and you ignore us! The winds are chilly and darkness blows swiftly in your city, yet you hide behind your broken windows and flimsy doors! Cowards! Come out and fight!”
Behind me, my brother and his followers made their way across the traffic-way and into another alley. Instead of following them, I looked to the horizon in front of me – my gaze mesmerized by the swirling mass of purple-black clouds funneling together in the distance, yellow-gray flashes of lightning erupting from its center.
“Dac…” a familiar voice settled in my ear. “Dac…” this time louder.
“Father?” my nose wrinkled with disgust.
“Come.” The Lord beckoned. “Come to the sun and see what the world has become…”
My spirit was drawn from the swirling darkness on one horizon and towards the setting sun on the opposite horizon.
“That’s impossible…” I mumbled to myself. “You can’t be alive…I stole the life from your body with my own hands…”
“You now stand over a wasteland of rot.” The grasslands were yellow and brown, the waters a murky purple and black instead of a vibrant blue as they once were. The forests were brittle and gray, the mountains above them built with gravestone – their once pearly snow-capped peaks dirtied with decay. “My children have failed.” Father continued, “One by one, they’ve taken new life and thrown it away.”
“I’ve done as you’ve asked, and nothing has changed.”
“Infested with darkness, you’ve been the most trustworthy of them all.” The Lord said. “Raziel, Rafael, Azrael, and Barakiel were fools, attempting to take Refi out by themselves instead of banding together. Now they rest in Hell.”
“My brother follows the same path…”
“Yes, and his fate will not be different. Zuriel and Munkir have sought solitude somewhere in the land, choosing a self-centered life of hiding. Baglis has yet to leave the Earth.”
“You failed,” I spoke with spite, “this world – the way it’s turned out, this is your fault.”
“No,” Father was quick to respond, “You have the power to change this, Dac.”
“I’m not your errand-boy anymore. Though I thought you vanquished, you somehow still exist – do your own bidding for once.”
“Your brother must die – but only after he has let you back into Heaven. The others must die as well – Zuriel, Munkir, and eventually, Baglis.” Father was grim. “You’ve done well to put your anger out of mind, my Son, but now is the time to embrace the power you have. Hunt down the rest of my children and purge them like pieces of gold and silver! Let not the sun set upon your wrath!”
“You ask me to follow the same foolish path. Beelzebub cannot be felled by one.”
“This is your prophecy, Dac. If you follow the path I put before you, I will protect you from Refi with the last bit of strength that I have…”
“Though I’ve done what you asked of me upon your death, I’ve only done so for selfish reasons. Your angels were supposed to come back and destroy Beelzebub for me, and subsequently, I would send them back to the Cosmos one at a time until this world – and the Earth – was mine to rule. Why come to me – why trust me after your angels have failed?”
“You were the only one who proved to be loyal in the end. Let me teach you the divine, Dac. Follow my words and the rule you seek shall come to be.” Father said. “Follow my words and let the streams run pure once again. Let the forests green and the grasslands thrive. Let there be peace under your hand, and let no one oppose you…”
Indeed, the sun was setting and the land blackened even more. The Lord’s golden rein had ended long ago. For the past couple hundred years, it was the rule of Beelzebub; soon, however, I could picture a new age – the Age of Dac.
“What do I do next?” I looked away from the setting sun and towards the violent lightning storm on the other horizon.
“Follow your brother to Heaven.” The Lord commanded. “Once he opens the gates, send his soul to Hell…”
FOUR
Crusted dark crimson pools of blood extended across the cool, cracked marble surface of the Lord’s Grand Hall like withering tendrils. The vaulted ceiling was obliterated in spots, leaving imperfect gaping holes to the endless skies beyond – the boulders of rubble looked like piles of crumbs next to the walls of this great place.
Long ago, this very hall served as a hub of sorts, where angels and scholars walked amongst the patrons of Heaven and fielded concerns as if they were performing reconnaissance work. A complex place where the people had faith that their rumors and gossip were cared for and eventually brought before the Lord by the winged saints whose ears were imprisoned during such shifts in their duty. In truth – in the end – the people’s faith meant very little. It gave them a societal construct, a faulty sense of security that was ultimately met with oblivion.
Zapa had already made her way to one of the many piles of skeletal remains, placing her hand on their bones and mysteriously tapping into the times of yore. “His name was…Dumah.”
Ah, a familiar name. Dumah was an angel of silence. The Lord often placed him in the Grand Hall to listen to His people, yet, Dumah cared not for their malarkey. He sought recognition and respect, two elements he didn’t feel he received from the Lord in Heaven. How do I know this? Because in secret, Dumah gave his allegiance to Refi Tulcifer. During my many years in Hell, I would see him, and I despised him. If the Lord was to be your enemy, do not hold yourself under a false guise, for these are the actions of a coward. Be strong and unafraid of what you stand for on a larger scale – after all, aren’t we all a part of Creation? Regardless, Refi made Dumah a Prince of Hell and provided him an army of darkened souls – he even gave him the “privilege” of guarding one of the gates to Hell for a time. So here was this angel – this being not deserving of the wings he had – guarding one of Hell’s gates and playing pretend in the Lord’s Grand Hall until the time was right.
“He…fought against Heaven?” Zapa pulled her hand back from Dumah’s remains.
“In the end, he got what he deserved.” I said. “His army turned against him and now his spirit is trapped in the very place he once guarded…or worse.”
At the end of the Grand Hall, there were three separate corridors. The hallway to the left gave home to a catacomb of worship, eventually leading to the Lord’s Temple, where Father would typically start his day as the sun brought light across the land. The hallway to the right was not so complex. It simply led to the Lord’s Ballroom, where nightly displays of elegant extravagance took place. The land’s most talented musicians and cooks were brought in, but not to partake – merely to serve the Lord and His entourage of angels. Patrons of Heaven were invited to watch, but not to participate. And finally, the corridor that went straight led to a grand staircase – a staircase that no mortal could reach the top because of the Lord’s powers. Supposedly, Bede was the only mortal who ever figured out how to transgress Father’s mysterious enchantment. At the top of the staircase was the Lord’s High Court where he spent most of his time.
“That’s far enough.” I heard a familiar voice behind me as I placed a foot on the first stair. Turning around, Kirin – or at least the body of Kirin that I’d left with Paul, Dejo, and Merth stood. “Now let me take it from here.” She said, her palm out. “Bede’s potion, please.”
“Demon!” I hissed, taking the pistols from my belt, I unleashed a barrage of bullets at her. However, none of them found their mark as her body phased in and out of sight as they neared.
“No need to be rude, Dac.” She said. “After everything we’ve been through, I was afraid you’d have figured it was me the whole time…”
“Sin…”
She smiled, her pointed teeth were unmistakable. Within moments, the visage of Kirin was completely gone. “The Prince is thrilled with your progress.”
“I don’t work for him…”
“Oh, but you do!” Sin laughed. “You forced your brother to open the gates to Heaven – something Refi could never do, and then you ended him! Also something the prophecy prohibited our dear prince from doing.”
“What I’ve done, I’ve done for myself!”
“I know that’s what you think, but it’s just not true.” Sin was condescending.
“Beelzebub is wrong.” I said. “The Lord is still alive, and the Age of Dac will come true!”
“You’re probably referring to the conversation you had in the snake city.” Sin sighed. “You of all people Dac…you – you should have known better. You’re the one who put the Lord to rest with His own blade.”
“He lives…”
“It was Beelzebub!” Sin mocked. “The Prince spoke to you as if he was the Lord. Do you forget that ever since the Lord perished, he now rules over this land? He hears the people’s pathetic prayers, and only he has the power to respond. This is his time – his era to rule.”
“No…” I felt vacuous.
“You’ve been too focused on your own selfish desires to see the truth in what is happening around you.” Sin continued. “I mean, why would the Lord want His angels dead?”
“They betrayed Him!”
“They are Beelzebub’s worst enemy, and they’ve tried to survive until your brother was reborn. Now the Lord’s failure is complete, and the Prince has you to thank.”
I stood still, contemplating the possibility that Sin could be lying. “If that’s all true, then why this place – why is Heaven so important? Why does Refi want in here so bad?”
“Dac…you really weren’t privy to what the Lord was doing in Heaven, were you?”
“Answer me!”
“Calm down, it’s really not that big of a secret.” Sin said. “What do you know of the Soul Pool?”
“It was a gateway between this land and the Earth.” I responded.
“Ah, but so much more, my dear Dac.” Sin continued. “It’s how the Lord ferried spirits from the Cosmos to be reborn on Earth.”
“Why is that so important?” I asked. “The Prince has his own gateway to the Earth – he has The Black Gate.”
“True, but he can only send beings as they are through The Black Gate.” Sin explained. “He cannot take spirits from the Cosmos or the Abyss and rebirth them on Earth. The Lord had its counterpart – The White Gate somewhere here in Heaven. There’s only one Soul Pool – only one way to take spirits and give them a new body.”
“From what I remember, Refi routinely sent his demons to the Earth to corrupt its inhabitants. Why not continue to do so…why worry about this so-called Soul Pool at all?”
“Oh, he definitely still sends demons to the Earth, but there’s one problem. Ever since the Lord perished and sealed the Soul Pool away, there haven’t been any spirits leaving the Cosmos – nor the Abyss for that matter.” Sin said. “Every being born on the Earth for several generations now has been born without a spirit – without a soul. Or better put, an empty soul…they just wander.”
“What do you mean, wander?”
“They have no purpose – they don’t care about anything. And thus being the case, they aren’t corruptible. Beelzebub’s demons have no effect on them.”
“Then why worry about the Earth at all? To me, it sounds as if Beelzebub has already won.”
“Don’t be an imbecile.” Sin continued. “When these apathetic beings die, their empty souls come here – to this land. If this continues, then both this land and the Earth will be overrun with mindless drones. Then nobody wins…everything will be for naught.”
“Why does he need Bede’s potion?”
“To activate the Soul Pool.” Sin answered. “Only then can the Prince truly rule both worlds. Only then can he finally free the dark spirits of the Abyss in a pure sense.”
“Pure?”
“Right now, he can only bring them to life in this land and send them to the Earth to corrupt. Once he has control of the Soul Pool, all of this becomes unnecessary – he can simply birth their soul directly into a new being on the Earth…no corruption is needed. Darkness will spread and the light will be forever trapped in the Cosmos.”
“And Bede’s elixir is the only thing that can activate the Soul Pool?” I asked.
“Yes,” Sin confirmed. “You have quite the opportunity in front of you, Dac. Give me the potion and rededicate yourself to Beelzebub – be his top lieutenant and live out an eternity of luxury. Or…I will be forced to take it from you and after I break your physical body, your already darkened spirit will remain trapped in the Abyss forever. The choice is yours.”
For the first time in an otherwise seemingly endless slumber, my soul felt genuine conflict within. What had I hoped the endgame be? Selfishly, I wanted to keep Bede’s elixir for myself, enabling what I perceived to be everlasting life. I had also been convinced that the Lord – even deceased as He was – would help me defeat Beelzebub if I followed the path He set before me. In the simplest of scenarios, I would be able to do both somehow. But apparently, neither was meant to be.
“I’ve lived in Beelzebub’s world.” I told Sin. “And it was nothing of what he promised me…”
“Dac, things are different now.”
“He took everything from me!” I felt anger swelling in my innards. “Everything Sin! I was loyal to him. I did his bidding and carried out the most difficult task of all – I slayed the Lord for him. And how did he repay me?” I paused a moment, trying to find calm. “He betrayed me…”
“You have to understand, Dac. It was necessary.”
“Necessary to murder my friends – the only family I knew?”
“They were your followers – your army, and anyone capable of killing the Lord has to be seen as dangerous.”
“No…” I said, holding up Bede’s elixir and putting one of my pistols to the side of it.
“Dac, wait!” Sin pleaded. “Everything’s changed now! The prince wants you back!”
“I have no interest living in a world under Refi Tulcifer.” I pulled the trigger and Bede’s elixir exploded – the destiny of the land and the Earth falling to the floor of the Lord’s Grand Hall in the form of glass shards and purple liquid.
FIVE
Explosions of light shot from Sin’s palms like fireworks, each blast curving a path towards me. I tried to shield myself by extending the blackened wing from my back, and although the feathers singed, burned, and ultimately absorbed the energy of her attacks, the impact of each blast knocked me to the ground and away from the spot where I shattered Bede’s elixir.
“What have you done?” Sin screamed and quickly fell to the marble floor where the contents of the potion slipped away into the large cracks in the building’s foundation – she tried to grasp the liquid with her hands because she had nothing to capture it in of her own. “You fool!”
Slowly, I stood. “If Beelzebub is truly meant to take the place of the Lord, he’ll figure out a different way to rule…”
“You…you will not be forgiven for this.” Sin remained on her knees.
“Forgiven?” I was disgusted. “By who?”
“Even Bede was relying on you to use this potion for good.”
“There is no good or evil.” I said. “There’s light and darkness, forever trying to swallow each other, but neither can exist without the other. It never ends, Sin…it can’t end without everything ending.”
“Beelzebub will swallow all of the light in this world and the next!” Sin shouted, springing to her feet and darting towards me with her jagged knife-like fingernails extended in front on her.
Purely out of reaction, I lifted my pistol and fired as many times as I could, but Sin’s body merely flickered in and out of reality, making my bullets worthless. I pulled one of the short swords from my belt and lifted it for defense, but it was too late. Sin was on top of me, her body moving with lightning speed. She bit my wrist, causing me to drop my weapon and cry out in pain. Her sharpened nails clawed at me and tore through my flesh.
“Come,” Agares beckoned to me from atop his devilish crocodile, “Do not be afraid of the darkness, my friend.”
I was officially a runaway, and the Prince told me to expect the crocodile-riding demon when I was at the point of no return.
“I’m being followed.” I told the wrinkled, silvery-skinned creature. “Father’s angels are after me…”
The old Agares laughed like a jolly Buddha and subsequently slammed his fist into the cranium of the crocodile he rode. The beast bellowed like a dinosaur and began whipping its tail around wildly, crashing into the walls and the floor with the force of a tornado.
I lost my footing and fell to the rocky ground, boulders falling all around me – all the while, Agares laughed his silly head away. The crocodile had become the epicenter of an earthquake. Immediately, I wondered if I had made a mistake in leaving Heaven – I felt fear and terror in my core.
Agares popped the crocodile on the head again with his fist and the shaking and flailing beast stopped. The demon held his hand out to me amongst the rubble all around. “There,” he laughed, “No more cave passageways from where you came.” I hesitated in taking his hand. “Means no more followers!” Agares burst out in deep bellows once again.
We continued through dimly luminescent caverns, Agares singing songs in many different languages. My brother had discovered my ventures away from Heaven to meet with Sej – my lover, and he disapproved. He forbid me from being with her, telling me she walked a separate path from the Lord. So I ran.
Prince Refi Tulcifer had taken a similar path, exiling himself from Heaven and refusing to live under Father’s rule. Although I was scared the first time he and his closest followers approached Sej and I, he quickly dispelled my fears with jovial laughter and pleasant conversation.
“I’ve never been happier.” Refi had told me. “So much of my life in Heaven was lived in fear…fear of what Father would do if I disobeyed him, fear of what his angels thought of me because of my bastard blood, and fear of what would ultimately happen to me in the end…” the Prince continued. “…I was never going to be fully accepted in Heaven, and I got tired of living in such a way. Now, I live the life I want to and I don’t fear Father or His angels.”
“You’re not scared they’ll come after you?” I remember asking.
“No.” Refi smiled. “Father condemns the darkness, but it’s not evil – it’s just the other half of where He chooses to get His own power from. I’ve learned to channel the darkness – what some call the Dark Arts. But it’s just a scary name…in actuality, it’s all a matter of perspective.”
The cavern that Agares and I followed opened to a chasm of sorts – a narrow and brittle pathway – or bridge really – curved over a dark pit below.
“Not much farther!” Agares laughed as a pair of tiny wings emerged from the side of his crocodile. The demon and his beast proceeded to fly up above and across the chasm, leaving me to walk.
“What’s down there?” I asked as I looked into the darkness below, my voice echoing off the walls.
“Nothing!” Agares continued to laugh. “If you fall, your soul will be given to the Abyss, so don’t take a wrong step!”
The demon and his crocodile were starting to get far away. “I’m scared…” I called out to them, but they clearly didn’t care.
Refi promised to protect me and my lover Sej if I spurned the Lord as well. But in order to see her again, in order to live a life free of Father’s rule, I needed to conquer the greater fear of not existing anymore at all – I needed to have faith that crossing the narrow bridge over the Abyss was worth it. Although difficult, that was one of the last times I felt the gut-wrenching and paralyzing feeling known as fear…
“You should have come back to Refi.” Sin said as she wrapped my neck with her nails like a pair of giant scissors – the feeling of fear coming back to me. “Now all you have to look forward to is the Abyss.”
Just as she began tightening her grasp and the skin of my neck began to cut, a sword punched through Sin’s chest from behind, causing the demon to wheeze.
“Dodge that.” Paul said, proud of what he had done.
“Hurry!” Zapa shouted. “The only way to kill a demon is to cut off its head!”
Using my blackened wing, I pushed Sin off of me and grasped for the longer blade across my back. Within moments, Sin’s head rolled free of her torso and her skin shriveled and petrified before our eyes. A small oozing of her tar-colored blood pumped from her neck cavity as the body mummified. I felt my own neck, wiping away the blood from my wounds.
“Thank you…” I finally said, acknowledging Paul’s deed.
“Paul and I decided it best to follow you.” Merth spoke up. “Dejo went his own way…”
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